https://techlife.app/tag/China https://techlife.app/archives/coca-cola-launches-dreamland-flavor-and-it-s-not-its-weirdest-product.html 2022-08-13T04:03:00+08:00 Do dreams have a taste? Dreams are abysses in the mind that may contain memories and the subconscious, or they may be incoherent and meaningless, and Freud did his best to elucidate the strangeness and ambiguity that dreams hide, but he didn't say what they taste like either.Coca-Cola offers an answer.The flavor of dreams is "Dreamworld".What a dream tastes like, drink it and seeDreamworld is the fourth product from Coca-Cola Creations, Coca-Cola's creative platform, and is expected to be available in the U.S. and Canada for a limited time on August 15.Dreamworld's flavors are based on elusive concepts rather than food, which is perhaps exactly what Coca-Cola intended -"Bottling up the style and subliminal surrealism of Special Arts Technicolor, savoring the magic of everyday moments and dreaming with your eyes open."It seemed to say something, and it seemed to say nothing at all.However, Dreamworld is destined to come in 2 flavors and only 2 flavors, one with sugar and the other with aspartame. The moment you drink Dreamworld, you'll know that Coca-Cola has decided what dreams taste like.Try the zero-sugar version of Dreamworld ahead of time according to reporter Katie Teague, which tastes like fruit-flavored candy with a more pronounced citrus flavor, and like Coca-Cola with rainbow sugar.Journalist Marvo got a sneak preview of the regular Dreamworld version. In his opinion, it's a tropical fruit-flavored cola, with mango The mango flavor is the most prominent, with some orange and papaya flavors as well.He even literally had the feeling of a dream: "Maybe you can imagine yourself sitting on the beach, basking in the sun getting your vitamin D and watching the waves gently lap the sand."Echoing the taste of dreams, Dreamworld's bright blue packaging and background artwork features disco balls, floating cubes and ladders to multi-dimensional worlds, presenting a dreamlike landscape somewhat similar to the psychedelic art installations at Coachella.To engage with Generation Z, Coca-Cola plans to launch a series of immersive digital experiences.Partnered with electronic music festival brand Tomorrowland to create an AR music experience that can be accessed by scanning a QR code on a bottle; collaborated with digital fashion brands like DRESSX to design virtual clothing; and launched a Dreamworld-themed Snapchat AR special effects lens ......▲ AR Music Experience Trailer. Image via: Coca-Cola® Creations HubAnd in the real world, Dreamworld will be running events on certain college campuses and appearing on the iconic Coca-Cola billboard in Times Square to appeal to a wider audience of young people.Coca-Cola says Dreamworld is the fourth and final release of the Lechon No Boundaries platform in 2022 .From February to August 2022, Coca-Cola brainstormed a succession of new limited-edition products because of Lets Create No Boundaries.What Lechuang Wujie wants to do is to give a new look to the 130-year-old Coca-Cola through limited product launches, immersive interactive experiences and cultural creativity that fits the younger generation.In other words, all products and experiences in the past and future will be limited, with a sense of 'one phase, one time'.No flavor Coca-Cola dare defineIn February this year, Coca-Cola officially announced Lechon Unlimited and launched the platform first product "Starwalk " (Starlight) in parallel. As you can see, it is inspired by space.More than 30 years ago, Coca-Cola partnered with NASA and was one of the first soft drink brands to go into space. In 1985, astronauts sipped Coca-Cola in a special space can.▲ Space Tank. Image from: airandspaceCoca-Cola has decided to recapture that connection with the Star Walk. Oana Vlad, Coca-Cola's Senior Director of Global Strategy, says there's no better way to do this than to "pay homage to the past so we can move into the future".The outer packaging of Star Walk is a gradient color with stars scattered across it, creating a nebulous feel that constantly changes in the sunlight, complementing the slightly red liquid.▲ Star River Walk Ingredients List.Coca-Cola claims that Star River Walk "has a subtle coolness to it", but personally I feel it is an easily cloying plum flavour, not as good as the original, and there are opinions that it is "cranberry" or "cherry with raspberry".Similar to Dreamworld, Coca-Cola has designed a digital experience for the Star Walk.Scanning the Star Walk bottle, amidst red liquid and fading lights, pop singer Ava Max will present an AR performance of her three hit singles, including "Sweet but Psycho", her figurative interpretation of "Star Walk" - sweet and crazy.Lechon Infinity also designed Instagram and Snapchat filters for the Star Walk, as well as AMSR for 'intracranial orgasms'.▲ Star River Walk AMSR.And in the real world, Coca-Cola has partnered with streetwear brand Staple, among others, to bring the Star Walk into everyday life.In April, Lotron Infinity launched its second product, "Rhythm Cube " (Zero Sugar Byte) Coke Zero. This is the first time Coca-Cola has created a creative flavor with a meta-universe theme, reconstructing the classic logo with pixel squares that are said to have a "pixelated taste".Once again, Coca-Cola whets the appetite and creates an elusive atmosphere. But the moment it enters the mouth is also the moment to dispel the charm, as the "pixel flavor" turns out to be "cherry and plum," "blueberry and lychee," "sugary version of cherry flavor," and even close to "ten bibs in water.Just as pixels drive digital connections, 'Rhythm Cube' brings people together to share great moments. Its series of digital experiences are in the context of such a proposition.In the game Fortnite, Coca-Cola and the gaming organization PWR have created an island, Pixel Point, where players can participate in four sensory-engaging mini-games on the themes of Castle, Escape, Race and Tower. Players can participate in four sensory-engaging multiplayer minigames, with themes such as Castle, Escape, Race and Tower, all of which require teamwork and the practice of 'connection'.The packaging itself is also a gateway between the digital and physical worlds. Players can scan the bottle to enter the AR game and use their fingers to guide the 'isolated' Bytes to 'jump' up the spiral staircase and help them return to the Coca-Cola logo.On June 30, Roca Creation Unlimited launched the third product Marshmello's, a co-branded flavor with acclaimed DJ and Grammy-nominated artist Marshmello, and the first co-branding for Roca Creation Unlimited.Prior to the product's release, the internet played with harmonics and speculated that the joint was Marshmallow (marshmallow) flavored. It's actually Watermelon Strawberry, which is much more figurative than Spacey or Pixel, but is also a surprising combination of flavors.Marshmello is always shown with a black and white helmet, which Coca-Cola used as inspiration to redesign the Coke can: the slim white bottle not only has a helmet, but also the Coca-Cola lettering recreated in Marshmello style.What's the digital experience of this co-branded product, as per what Lechon Unlimited has been used to?Players can participate in live gaming adventures on Twitch, gain exclusive access to virtual items designed by face pinching app Zepeto, or scan the QR code on the can to access the Coca-Cola Creations website where they can make unique digital artwork while listening to Marshmello's new song "Numb".From Star Walk and Rhythm Cube to co-branding with artists and dream-inspired, Lechon Infinity creates individual limited and overall continuous creative tastes and brings corresponding designs and experiences in the physical and digital world.Taste has an end, but creativity has no endWith limited products, limited-time experiences and unlimited creativity, how does Lechon Unlimited know how to play so well?If Coca-Cola had just announced a new limited-edition flavor and pointed to it and said it was 'plum' or 'tropical fruit', people wouldn't have been overly concerned about it.In contrast, Coca-Cola says a mediocre bottle of drink actually tastes like space, pixels, dreams, and you always want to try it - it sounds outrageous, right, but the cost of trial and error is not high, so why not buy and drink it?Good at using the concept to give the flavor mystery, so that Lechon Boundless wins half a step from the start. Meta-universe, dream world, space, all not easily explained, Coca-Cola is framed by a specific flavor. As long as it is unexpected enough before opening the cap, it achieves the desired effect.As Alessandra Cascino, Program Director of Coca-Cola's North American Operations, puts it.Lets create something unexpected to play with, which will undoubtedly spark consumer interest and debate ...... We welcome this.Besides, the concept Coca-Cola is playing with is hot in its own right, with themes such as space, meta-universe, and dreamscapes common in the film, music, gaming, and fashion industries.For example, Coca-Cola has made China one of its key markets for Lechon No Boundaries, collaborating across borders with IPs from different young trend circles in the country. Star River Walk and Bubble Mart launched limited edition hipster games, and Tangerine Duo launched themed makeup; Rhythm Cube brought in virtual warrior girl Ren Ziya to endorse it, in line with the meta-universe concept.So, Lechuang Wujie is actually following the trend of young culture, centering around the interest centers and cultural trends of the Z generation, and resonating and connecting with a wide range of young consumers from mediums such as music, games and sports.The limited-time, limited-edition approach is similar to the "Drop" model (https://hypebeast.com/zh/2022/7/does-drop-culture-really-suit-for-fashion-brand) that originated in Streetwear culture, where the novelty of limited editions and the urgency of The novelty of limited editions and the urgency of "first come, first served" keeps the brand fresh and surprising to consumers.Culture-driven is the inside, immersive digital experiences are the outside.AR, AMSR, social media, online gaming ...... Lets Create No Boundaries engages consumers in a variety of ways, portraying itself as "a young, tech-savvy brand". Josh Schwarber, Senior Director of Digital Design at Coca-Cola, said.Lets Create Without Borders gives us permission to 'play'. The product will always be front and center, and in the meantime we are building multi-sensory stories and immersive experiences around each of these creations.Real Magic, born out of Coca-Cola's new brand concept 'Real Magic' launched in September 2021: the world is now highly connected yet divided, when people embrace conflict and confrontation and celebrate inclusivity, real magic happens and it is more important than ever that everyday life is not mundane.Manolo Arroyo, Coca-Cola's global chief marketing officer, noted that "Real Magic" is more than just an advertising phrase, it will be the North Star of advertising and the overall brand.LeCreative Boundless straddles the physical and virtual worlds, focusing on pop culture and trends of the times, keenly grasping the high points of youth trends, and finding ways to interact with consumers, which is also a kind of connection in essence. If Starwalk looks outward to the starry sea, Dreamworld looks inward to the infinite possibilities of the mind and pays tribute to the common ground of humanity.While the idea of Lechon Infinity is not entirely unexpected, and there's the suspicion that the formula is repetitive, when you notice it, want to try it, and even start thinking 'what does a dream taste like', Coca-Cola has won. https://techlife.app/archives/ahead-of-time-these-are-the-possibilities-for-the-xiaomi-car-in-2024.html 2022-08-12T10:03:00+08:00 On the evening of August 11, 2022, Lei Jun left less than 30 minutes of his annual speech, which lasted 2 hours and 40 minutes, to put Xiaomi Auto's progress in the "One More Thing" session, yet it was the session that received the most attention. Before formally reporting on the progress of the car, Lei Jun said.I'm not going to be debunking rumors or introducing any new developments for the next two years, and we'll certainly keep you posted on a regular basis when the time is rightThis shows that Lei Jun knows that building a car is complicated and needs to be more focused.Two years later and then report back is 2024, Lei Jun set " Xiaomi self-driving full-stack self-research algorithm, the goal of 2024 into the first camp " plan. In the speech above Lei Jun showed the Xiaomi self-driving video of the actual test, the question arises, how far away from the goal?To start with the conclusion, the Xiaomi self-driving video shown on August 11, 2022 is analyzed as an example, doing urban and high-speed self-driving and autonomous valet parking, but with a number of flaws, however the upside potential is great.Before we analyze it, let's review the key timeline since the official announcement of the car build 500 days ago.March 31, 2021: Xiaomi officially announces car manufacturing, Lei Jun presses his reputation into battle, expects $10 billion investment over next 10 yearsApril 6, 2021: Lei Jun invites celebrity car blogger @HanLu to a live broadcast, reveals first car is a sedan or SUVJune 3, 2021: Zongmu Technology Raises $190 Million in Funding Led by Xiaomi Cheung Kong Industry Fund; Company Focuses on Autonomous DrivingJuly 28, 2021: Lei Jun Weibo posts job ad for 500 employees to research L4 level smart driving capabilitiesJuly 31, 2021: Ganfeng Lithium Announces RMB 375 Million Investment Led by Xiaomi Changjiang Industry Fund and JIAMU Venture Capital, Company Focuses on Lithium Series ProductsAugust 2, 2021: Geometry Partners Raises Nearly RMB 400 Million in Funding, Xiaomi and Others Fund Its Development of 4D Millimeter Wave Imaging RadarAugust 18, 2021: Honeycomb Energy underwent an industrial and commercial change, adding a number of shareholders including Xiaomi Changjiang Industry Fund, increasing its registered capital to RMB 2.811 billion and focusing on battery R&D and productionAugust 23, 2021: Wisdom Interoperability (Aipark) Announces Strategic Investment from Xiaomi, Focuses on Smart Parking Management SystemAugust 25, 2021: Xiaomi acquires "DeepMotion" for $77.37 million to focus on vision-based autonomous driving solutionsNov 16, 2021: Woosai Technology Receives $70 Million in Additional Financing from Xiaomi Production Investment, which is also a LIDAR Supplier to AzeraNovember 27, 2021: Xiaomi Auto settles in Beijing Economic Development Zone, with a capacity of 150,000 units in Phase I and Phase II respectivelyApril 26, 2022: Xiaomi released a tender for suppliers of high-precision machining centers for large die-cast parts, while according to Die Casting Weekly, Xiaomi has signed a contract with a domestic die-casting machine manufacturer to purchase oversized tonnage die-casting machines from it for integrated die-castingJune 23, 2022: Continental has revealed that it has received an order for a 5R1V multi-sensor fusion system solution from a high-profile new powerhouse in China, helping the company to build an L2-class project that will go into production in 2024.5R1V is a 5 millimeter wave radar + 1 8 megapixel front view camera solution, with the camera coming from Continental's joint venture with Horizon, Continental CoreSmart Drive, based on the Horizon Journey 3 chipJuly 8, 2022: A netizen photographed a car labeled 'Xiaomi Self-Driving Test' with LIDAR arranged on it, Xiaomi responded 'This is us testing self-driving technology, not our car'July 28, 2022: According to Sina Technology, the Xiaomi car project entered the soft-mode car off-line phase in September, followed by the field test and winter test cycle as expected, with a team of more than 1,600 people.The company's main goal is to provide a solution to the problem of the problem.Team analysis: perspective scenario as a long-term goal, guessing two possibilities for production vehiclesIn the middle of his speech, Lei Jun said.We have acquired Deep Motion Technology and formed an elite team of over 500 people, including 50 top experts in the fields of autonomous driving hardware, perception and control algorithms, and high precision positioning. **Here's the highlights for you Deep Motion, 500 people, high precision positioning.DeepMotion Technology DeepMotion is the only company related to the autonomous driving field that Xiaomi has acquired in recent times, the others are all in the form of investment. Regarding DeepMotion's positioning, co-founder Cai Rui had an interview with Lei Feng's New Smart Driving in 2018, in which he said "to provide customers with perception and positioning services related to autonomous driving on the basis of high precision maps", while regarding the company's core technology, he believes "the team has more accumulation in the field of deep learning and stereo vision".When talking about CyberDog, Lei Jun said "CyberDog vision system has made Xiaomi's mobile phone's everything chasing focus function, Xiaomi autopilot is progressing very fast thanks to Xiaomi AI lab founded in 2017", here again to give you delineate vision system.Therefore, it can be guessed that the future development of Xiaomi Autonomous Driving is dominated by the vision multi-sensor fusion solution. When the vision solution is mature enough, LIDAR may be abandoned by Xiaomi Auto.Although the current flagship models of Azure Xiaoli are equipped with LIDAR, there is a strong emphasis on vision solutions, for example, the current Ideal L9 has removed the four corner millimeter wave radars, keeping only the forward-facing millimeter wave radar and making full use of the 8-megapixel perception camera, while Tesla is more aggressive and gradually removing the forward-facing millimeter wave radar as well. One of the major benefits of a pure vision solution is the low cost, which facilitates large-scale commercialization.The company's first visit to the city was in 2013, when it became the owner of a Tesla.Based on Continental's description of the 'much-anticipated new powerhouse' in the 2024 model year, with a 5 mm-wave radar + 1 8-megapixel front-view camera solution, one could hazard a guess at one of Xiaomi's first mass-production models. So it can be further speculated that Xiaomi's first production models of assisted driving, based on high precision maps, have two versions, of which the entry version uses a vision-based millimeter wave radar + HD camera multi-sensor fusion program, while the high version adds LIDAR. Why is there speculated to be a LIDAR version, because Lei Jun currently has high hopes for autonomous driving to be the first echelon in the country, and the launch showed a LIDAR-equipped test car above.The 500-person team revealed by Lei Jun, compared to the 500-person team of Xiaoli, is the entry level of Xiaomi's first tier team. But it's been less than two years since Xiaomi announced it was building a car, so such a scale is rare.May 26, 2021 - Ideal Auto CEO Li reveals 300-person self-driving team, plans to increase to 600 by year-endOn August 12, 2021, Azera CEO Li Bin revealed during the Q2 2021 earnings call that the self-driving related team size is around 500 people, with plans to increase to 800 people by the end of the yearIn an interview at the 8th China Electric Vehicle Council 100 Forum on March 26, 2022, Xiaopeng's CEO said that Xiaopeng's entire R&D and data staff for intelligent assisted driving is close to 1,500 people in sizeActual performance: quite a distance from the top tierFor the autopilot, we hope to get very close to the skillfulness of a veteran driver driving, able to put and take away depending on the complex local road conditions.In this scenario, the Xiaomi self-driving test car is not too fast or too slow when turning around, finding the right time to merge into the traffic, which is reassuringWhen you encounter an accident car, it will automatically go around instead of waiting all the time. But here we can see that the Xiaomi test car is a bit far away from the car, and it's easy to get stuck in traffic at home, even to the point where the white car on the right can't look away and overtake from the right.On the other hand, it also shows that the test car was driving at a lower speed than the other cars and did not drive as fast as possible below the speed limit and was not a veteran enough driver.The Xiaomi Autopilot's perception system is fast and able to identify all types of vehicles, pedestrians and bicycles, as can be felt in the midst of oncoming traffic.Spotting a pedestrian above the zebra crossing ready to cross, the Xiaomi self-driving test car will yield and slowly lend a hand to the left, which is very much like an old driver operating in a decisive process.The self-parking demonstrated here is smooth when entering a parking lot, but the vehicle was actually officially built with a map before the video was shot, so if it hadn't been, the process might have been relatively slow. There are bugs here too, where the brakes are slightly too strong when encountering pedestrians, which tends to make passengers feel uneasy.If the above-mentioned assisted driving features have already been demonstrated by other car companies, the following robotic arm automatic charging can be a surprise. But I don't know if it's easy to follow and it looks like it takes up a lot of space, which most people don't have in their parking lots.The biggest difficulty is time, and Lei Jun's personal energyAfter talking about this Xiaomi Autopilot, I remembered what Li Xiang, CEO of Ideal Auto, said on Weibo on his 40th birthday: "The only difference between people is their ability to learn and their speed of learning, the rest is a lie.This Xiaomi Autopilot performance is not yet in the top tier of the country. But if you add the premise of making such an achievement in 500 days, this is a very hard-working and fast progressing car company. I am optimistic about Xiaomi car, self-development algorithm of the full stack of autonomous driving is the hard and right road, but the biggest difficulty is the time above the urgency, as well as Lei Jun's personal energy .In July this year, Sina Technology reported that a person close to Xiaomi Auto revealed Lei Jun's obsession with building cars "as long as he is in the Xiaomi Science Park office, almost two-thirds of the time in Xiaomi Auto".While I wouldn't necessarily buy a Xiaomi car, I admire Lei Jun who still rushes to the front line and presses his reputation to build a car. https://techlife.app/archives/as-musk-announces-tesla-truck-deliveries-this-year-toyota-s-bet-on-hydrogen-cell-vehicles-desperately-needs-to-redeem-itself-nea.html 2022-08-11T06:06:00+08:00 Toyota's first all-electric car, the bZ4X, went on sale in May. A few days ago it was revealed that it sent 'recall emails' to owners - the wheels could come off when driving short distances.For Toyota, the once unassailable hybrid pioneer, the first all-electric car came too late and the first scandal came too soon. Think back to more than two decades ago, when the Prius, the world's first mass-produced hybrid, was introduced, and even Hollywood's hottest star, Leonardo DiCaprio, was smitten.Toyota has been studying NiMH and Li-ion batteries for many years, and is aware of the energy density limit of Li-ion batteries.Toyota's judgment is scientific and the path to development is winding. The emergence of Tesla across the board has made lithium batteries, lithium mining, and the electric vehicle industry as a whole, the most talked about commodity sector in recent years, and has led to the most promising manufacturing sector in the world under the 'carbon reduction' goal.▲ Five years on, the electric truck Semi is finally hereRecently, Musk gave the lithium-ion truck world another shot in the arm with his announcement that the electric truck Semi is being delivered this year.Since this year, the price of lithium ore has risen wildly, and major car companies have been grabbing mines globally. GAC says it works for Ningde Times, who says profits are very slim. Without lithium, hydrogen fuel cells are back in the public eye again.Toyota vs Tesla, the battle of two routesIn the late nineties, when Toyota's first generation hybrid Prius was introduced, Tesla was not yet born. Fifteen years later, in 2012, the Prius series sold 4 million units worldwide.That same year, Tesla launched the Model S, proving that electric cars, while expensive, are not bad in range and not bad in power, and are perfectly suitable for home use. From then on, the face of 'green' was no longer Toyota, but Tesla - the new leader in green transportation.Toyota ignores the significance of the times that Tesla represents. Although Toyota has also invested in Tesla, it sees the startup not as a threat, but as a small player that can complement its own chain of industries.The two companies don't compete in the same field; Toyota is a global automotive giant and Tesla is just a small American automaker. Also, Toyota sees hybrids as a stopgap measure and a pre-hydrogen fuel cell ready alternative.▲ The glow-in-the-dark version of the Prius that went on sale last fallToyota is ignoring some seemingly subtle but 'butterfly effect' factors that are going to cause a storm. It's true that hybrids are just a bridge to clean fuel vehicles, but Toyota can't figure out the length of that bridge. BlackBerry refuses to imitate the iPhone, and Toyota can't see Tesla because BlackBerry thinks it will need a physical keyboard for the next decade or so, and Toyota thinks it will need gasoline for decades to come.A larger context for Tesla's expansion is that governments around the world are looking at the 'green economy' and restricting or banning fossil fuel vehicles. The various policies were introduced much earlier than Toyota had anticipated. The policies have resulted in massive subsidies that have contributed to lower prices for electric cars and an expanded charging infrastructure that has brought more consumer interest, while all is not yet ready for hydrogen fuel cell cars.In order to protect the investments already poured in, and to stick to its judgment, Toyota has been lobbying governments, especially the US government, heavily against electric cars. Since it can't influence the opposition, it must at least influence the ref.But time was running out. iPhone and Android phones were launched and BlackBerry sales continued to grow for years. Today, BlackBerry's share of the mobile phone market is zero.The car market is slower to change than the mobile phone market, but Toyota is still in a hurry to launch the bZ4X. bZ, beyond Zero, stands for "beyond zero" emissions electric vehicle; 4X means compact crossover SUV, similar to the equivalent size RAV4. electric bZ models by 2025.The bZ4X's numbers aren't very good, acceleration isn't very fast and the range isn't very long. The 0-100 km/h acceleration time is 8.4 seconds and 7.7 seconds for the front-wheel drive and four-wheel drive models, respectively. Both models are powered by a lithium-ion battery pack with a capacity of 71.4 kWh and have a range of 460 km and 500 km respectively.The bZ4X sets the steering wheel rotation angle to ±150°, so that the driver can complete the steering operation without changing hands to hit the wheel.The biggest highlight, or gimmick, is its solar-paneled panoramic sunroof, which can power the car for nearly 1,800 kilometres of driving per year, a figure that has yet to be verified.Before the practicality of "sunroof power" could be verified, Toyota, with 25 years of experience in electrification, had its first electric car, the bZ4X, revealed to be "off the wheel".Technology vs. politics, behind the battle of the linesThe battle between lithium batteries and hydrogen fuel cells is a struggle between two routes.From a technology route perspective, hydrogen fuel cells are better than lithium batteries in terms of range, refueling time, longevity, recyclability, durability, and energy density. Toyota has been drilling power cells for years, and its strong confidence in the advantages of hydrogen fuel is not unfounded.Like a hydrogen fuel cell, it can be fully charged in three to five minutes. Lithium battery packs take seven to eight hours to charge, and charging them too fast can burn them out. Like lithium batteries generally have 500 to 800 charge cycles, plus the driver's driving style, the life of the car seven to ten years. And hydrogen fueled cars have no problem driving for twenty years.Like Li-ion battery electric cars, warm places are better suited, but not high latitudes or cold areas. A Tesla owner in Beijing previously complained that he had an "electric dad", one reason is that he had to drive with a blanket in winter - he didn't dare to turn on the air conditioning, and the power dropped too fast. Hydrogen fuel, on the other hand, is not afraid of extreme cold or heat, and is a must for spacecraft flying off the planet.In 1937, the German airship Hindenburg exploded at high altitude, leading directly to the demise of the airship industry.The fundamental issue is still energy density. Hydrogen has a high energy density and is the lightest element in the universe, and hydrogen fuel cells therefore have a significant weight advantage. Lithium battery packs are heavy, so heavy that vans simply can't use them, which is why hydrogen fuel cells have so far been widely used in buses and large vans.Data from a commercial truck manufacturer shows a twenty-ton truck with a deadweight of seven tons, a two-and-a-half-ton lithium battery pack, and a range of 200 kilometers, leaving room for a ten-ton load; if the range is increased to the typical value of 500 kilometers, at least another three tons of battery pack is added, at which point there is only room for a seven- or eight-ton load - the truck pulls too little and there is no profitability to speak of.Many people are going to ask, will the energy density of lithium batteries increase as technology advances?It won't. It's a physical principle that dictates this. What a battery does is a redox reaction, gaining or losing electrons, before producing an electric current. The density of electrons is the density of energy. The five elements suitable for making batteries have electron utilization rates of hydrogen (100%), carbon (66%), boron (60%), beryllium (50%), and lithium (33%).The lithium cobalt acid batteries used by Tesla are already the most 'perfect' lithium batteries on the market, and there is almost a fifty-fold difference in energy density compared to hydrocarbon petroleum; the difference in energy density with hydrogen fuel cells is even greater.The only energy source that is more 'powerful' than fossil fuels is hydrogen, nuclear energy.With such a bright future for hydrogen fuel cells, why hasn't Toyota gone through with it?First of all, it is difficult to preserve. Pure hydrogen is explosive. The Hindenburg crash was caused by an explosion of hydrogen, and since then all airships have switched to helium.Secondly, it is inefficient, because to get pure hydrogen, one either relies on fossil fuel purification and refining, a process that is not environmentally friendly - the output of hydrogen emits toxic substances such as sulfides, and lacks the means to effectively detect them; or relies on electrolysis, which is too inefficient, during which half the energy is lost, and then cooled, transported and stored, which consumes more energy.Combined with little supporting infrastructure, automakers who developed hydrogen fuel cells in the early years have become disenchanted.▲ Volvo, Daimler, Traton plan to form electric truck charging network in EuropeIt comes down to the question of political lines.European car companies began laying out hydrogen fuel cells 20 years ago, with Mercedes, Ford and Nissan developing a joint venture in Canada to develop fuel cells. The German auto industry dominates Europe, but has been taking the clean diesel route to meet EU standards, a choice that has made it difficult to get hydrogen fuel cell applications off the ground.Europe is also turning to lithium battery electric vehicles after the "Emissionsgate" scandal. VW is the most aggressive, as it has neither the accumulation of new energy technologies nor the home base of fuel cells. Mercedes-Benz has also abandoned the hydrogen fuel cell passenger car technology route. Daimler and Volvo have a joint venture to develop hydrogen fuel cells for commercial vehicles.Today's lithium battery car market, the United States and China are strong. The United States has been taking the lithium battery car route, adhere to the hydrogen route of Toyota and Hyundai, where the market in Japan and South Korea is very small, years of lobbying, but also not too much to impress the main passenger car market in the United States, but took most of the market share of the United States hydrogen-fueled commercial vehicles.China's power grids and oil companies have strong stability, and with a huge domestic market, support for lithium batteries has already yielded results. the domestic hydrogen energy market gradually kicked off after Premier Li Keqiang's visit to Japan in 2018. With the market volume of 'internal circulation', it is sufficient to develop both lithium batteries and hydrogen fuel cells to layout the passenger car and commercial vehicle markets.Energy storage cells vs. fuel cells, reality vs. futureOn August 10, North American Eastern Time, Musk took to social media to announce the delivery of the 500-mile range (long-range version, 804 km) electric truck Semi this year. The 'heavy truck', which has been skipping since its 'reveal' in 2017, has suddenly shown up.The all-electric Semi wants to repeat the Model S's story of "disrupting" the Prius by taking on the "large load and long range" heavy truck segment, which focuses on hydrogen fuel cells.According to Musk, the Semi has 500 kWh of battery energy and a maximum range of more than 1,000 km. Equipped with the latest 4680 all-ear battery, it has 500% more energy density and 600% more power output than the original 18650 battery, but requires good thermal conditions.It is equipped with four electric motors and has a combined system power of over 1000 hp, with a 0-100 km/h acceleration time of 20 seconds when fully loaded with 40 tons of cargo, and breaks 100 in 5 seconds when empty. With a "bullet-head" design at the head, the wind resistance coefficient is only 0.36, which can better reduce electric consumption.▲ Comparison of Battery 7, Battery 5, 18650, 2170 and 4680The weight of the Semi's battery pack has not yet been revealed, so it's impossible to estimate its actual cargo capacity and compare it to other hydrogen-fueled heavy trucks. For reference, a Model Y requires approximately 960 4680 cells, with a battery pack weight of around 800 kilograms.In the case of hydrogen fuel cell trucks, the average daily mileage of fuel cells is nearly twice that of lithium batteries, based on fuel cell versus lithium battery operating data for logistics vehicles in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. For the same range, fuel cell vehicles carry slightly more than 5% more weight than lithium battery vehicles.Note that on August 9, Tesla just signed a contract worth about $5 billion to buy battery materials from nickel processing companies in Indonesia, the equivalent of a 'mine grab' down under. Also, Tesla has 'poached' people from Bosch and SAFT who work on fuel cells and hydrofluoric acid batteries.▲ Hyperion's first hydrogen-powered supercar, the XP-1At present, the application of hydrogen fuel cells can not compete with lithium batteries, the most fundamental problem is that the two types are different and the energy conversion difference is large. Lithium battery is an energy storage battery, and hydrogen fuel cell is a fuel cell, and the latter has to take an extra step of consuming energy to refine energy, unlike the former which can directly store electricity, and the efficiency is greatly reduced.The business logic of fuel cells and energy storage cells is also completely different. The fuel cell industry is similar to the gas heating industry in that it has to accumulate cash flow by constantly developing new projects and then invest in new projects to repeat the rollover. China currently has 36 million trucks and 240 million passenger cars, so the difference in volume is huge, and it is difficult for fuel cells to make money by a single link.There is a 'valley of death' in the hydrogen energy world: until the industry reaches a certain volume, the entire business chain loses money and cash flow remains negative. Where is the tipping point? The U.S. Energy Agency estimates that it will be 100,000 hydrogen vehicles per year before they are at parity with trams. China's annual production is around 1,000 units.The "Valley of Death" phase relies entirely on state subsidies, but it is difficult to judge precisely how large the subsidies will be and how they will be implemented.▲ Nikola, founded in 2015, is an American hybrid truck design company with a focus on hydrogen heavy trucks and hydrogen refueling stationsThe way a hydrogen fuel cell company would operate, it would 'take' a different city or region, like a gas company, and build hydrogen filling stations and load vehicles. And there is exclusivity, one company operates an area and no other can, which means once you get a certain area, you get subsidies for at least a decade or so.Nikola, an American hydrogen fuel cell heavy truck company, has a model where the customer buys the vehicle and does not have to pay for hydrogen refueling. The company takes care of setting up hydrogen refuelling stations at warehouses at both ends of the logistics company, or leasing the vehicles to customers to ensure that the customers running the routes are profitable enough.The bottom line is that reality is reality and the future is the future.The upper limit of hydrogen fuel cells is anyone's guess; after all, hydrogen is one of the most abundant elements in the universe. And the upper limit for lithium batteries is obvious, the minerals will run out one day. https://techlife.app/archives/google-is-angry-at-apple-and-will-be-sidelined-if-you-don-t-use-the-iphone.html 2022-08-10T04:02:00+08:00 Earlier this year, American teens were caught in a 'social rift' over the blue and green of text message bubbles.Green bubbles and blue bubbles, divided into different camps, are used as color metaphors for the miscommunication of text messages between iPhone and Android phones. On either side of the rift, one is the prehistoric era of text communication and the other is the contemporary era of media abundance.Here, blue is more noble than green, and the way to 'give up the dark for the light' is to have an iPhone.If the mountain doesn't come to me, I'll come to the mountain. 9 August, Google calls out Apple - It's because Apple doesn't support RCS (Rich Media Communication Service) that the 'blue-green bubble debate' is happening.Why is Google asking Apple to support RCS?When an iOS user receives a cross-device message from Android, the text message is displayed in a green bubble box.This would have been no surprise; before Apple launched its free communications service iMessage in 2011, bubbles were basically green.To differentiate iMessage from traditional SMS messages, Apple designed the bubble in blue, setting the stage for future blue-green battles.Americans who love to chat by text message don't like the green bubble, they prefer the blue bubble of iMessage. The color itself is neutral, but it represents a very different experience.iMessage offers end-to-end encryption, supports text, picture, video, voice, group chat, and adds effects such as invisible ink, shrink, zoom, screen echo effects, and data transfer via traffic or Wi-Fi. These features are needed for modern communication.The problem is that text messages sent between iPhone and Android users are converted into SMS (Short Message Service), which sends plain text messages between devices, and MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service), which can only include limited images, background music, and is described by Google as "outdated technology from the '90s and '00s".The first SMS message was sent in 1992.Going back to SMS and MMS from iMessage is a fall from luxury to frugality, with compressed photos and videos, no read and incoming alerts, no support for end-to-end encryption, and hard-to-read white text on a bright green background ......"The 'green bubble' discrimination has even become a social issue. Some American teens are so socially pressured that they have switched their phones to iPhones in order to use iMessage.But Google argues that there's no need to spend money switching phones, and that the poor experience of texting each other on iOS and Android is caused by Apple, which should fix the problem by switching from SMS/MMS to the modern industry standard RCS.RCS is a cross-platform messaging protocol and is seen as a successor to SMS and MMS. Google says that most carriers and more than 500 Android device manufacturers support RCS, but Apple does not.SMS, born in 1992, is basically useless for anything other than receiving verification codes, advertisements, and delivery notifications. iMessage, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, etc., are not universal solutions, either by downloading an app or by limiting the operating system.So, with RCS, an upgraded version of traditional SMS, Google hopes to truly enable cross-platform messaging.RCS is much richer than traditional SMS, supporting a variety of instant messaging features such as image, text, voice, video, group chat and file transfer, and letting you know if the other party has read and is typing. It also supports B2C services, where companies can push graphic messages to users, providing an interactive 'applet'-like interface in the form of cards.In short, RCS is like a cross-platform iMessage without the app dependency, but integrated directly into the OS and tied to the phone number. In theory, users from different carriers know each other's phone numbers, don't need to friend each other and can chat for free.And in essence, RCS is a protocol that works on iOS and Android and offers many of the features of iMessage, and is not the same as an instant messaging service.RCS has most of the features of iMessage, but not all. rcs does not yet support end-to-end encryption in 2019 , end-to-end encryption is now available for one-to-one chats, and end-to-end encryption in group chats will be available later this year.▲ Image from: the vergeIn recent months, Google has been asking Apple to support the RCS, even building a 'Get The Message' website and launching an advocacy initiative on 9 August calling on users to speak out.If you're texting with an Android user, you won't be able to change the bubble color or bypass the SMS, MMS restrictions. But Apple can take the RCS and make those conversations better. You can @Apple and tweet with the #GetTheMessage hashtag.There's no reason Apple has to support RCS yetIs it possible for Apple to respond to Google and support the RCS? In response, The Verge reporter Jon Porter weighs in."The implication is that it's unlikely that "Apple's adoption of RCS will feel like Americans abandoning iMessage en masse and moving to WhatsApp or Signal.From a competitor's perspective, Apple's iMessage is seen as a "soft monopoly." Hiroshi Lockheimer, a senior vice president at Google, believes that the closed environment of iMessage is a business strategy for Apple.This is evident in the behavior of American teens switching iPhones and actively committing to the "iOS Wall of Service" in order to use iMessage.What's more, for Apple, iMessage is close to the RCS, whether it's the richness of the instant messaging software or the convenience of the system of tying your phone number, so there's no need to destroy your own prestige.So conversely, is it possible for Apple to launch an Android-enabled version of iMessage? After all, Apple doesn't have a closed strategy for all of its services.This question has been answered long ago; in 2016, Phil Schiller, then director of marketing, admitted that 'porting iMessage to Android has done us more harm than good'.With more than a billion active devices of Apple's own, there's enough data for Apple to use for AI learning research, and the benefits of porting iMessage to Android would be more limited.Interestingly, Google's focus on RCS comes after Hangouts, Allo, and other chat apps faltered.In 2018, Google said it wanted "every Android device to have a great default messaging experience," but the truth is that some of the products it has made still can't beat iMessage.After Google called on the public to speak out, one Twitter user asked rhetorically.I rarely use iMessage, but how many different chat apps has Google built and closed since iMessage was released?Domestic carriers are getting into the game, do we need RCS?Disliking Google's chat app is one thing, and the RCS, which brings carriers into the fold, is another, and they're not the same thing.Back in 2008, the GSMA, the global communications industry association, defined the RCS standard. While iMessage, WhatsApp and WeChat have replaced traditional SMS, RCS still hasn't caught on, but the country's operators aren't giving up.In July 2018, China Mobile and Huawei partnered to launch RCS "Enhanced SMS", a traffic data-based instant messaging service that can send graphics, voice, video, location and other content.At that time, China Mobile also offered 10GB of "Enhanced Messaging Exclusive Traffic" per month. After all, apart from SMS, traffic is also a big part of the operator's business.In April 2020, RCS rocketed to be called '5G messaging' in China. In this month, China Telecom, China Mobile, and China Unicom jointly released the "5G Messages White Paper".5G messaging is "a new upgrade of the terminal's native basic short message service," and the message content will not only break through text limitations and length restrictions, but also enable the effective integration of text, images, audio, video, location and other information.5G news is not a solo act sung by operators, as ZTE, Huawei, Xiaomi, Samsung, OPPO, Vivo and other terminal manufacturers have all paid some attention to 5G information.And a test in late 2020 showed that only 5G phones could send and receive RCS messages properly, while 4G phones sending and receiving RCS messages would automatically be converted to SMS or MMS, amounting to a strong association of RCS with the rollout of 5G phones.RCS seems to be very much in line with our imagination of "small but beautiful", similar to the ready-to-use small program, with the advantages of no registration, no login, no installation, real name system, etc. Users do not need to download a lot of apps, through the native message portal can complete all kinds of operations, to achieve "message as a service".But for now, it seems that the social attributes of RCS for acquaintances are not obvious and have more value for business services and government services than the head instant messaging products that focus on social.On the one hand, every shopping holiday, SMS from major e-commerce companies come one after another, and RCS is able to package such SMS in a more graphic, smart and high-end way.On the other hand, as Zuo Pengfei, an associate researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said, in practical applications, apps are common in finance, education, taxation, healthcare and other fields installation cost is high, retention rate is low, and user activity is low, RCS may be able to solve this thankless situation.However, the "harassment property" of traditional SMS is too prominent, and once the mobile phone number is stolen, the marketing SMS is like a faucet that can't be tightened. whether RCS can block spam messages such as casinos and online loans is directly related to user experience, iMessage users have long experienced the "Macau casino" bombing.Until the arrival of the RCS, which offers a "one-stop service experience," text messages that you don't want to open except to check the captcha are still a necessity. https://techlife.app/archives/want-want-milk-has-no-successor-can-want-want-still-be-prosperous-in-the-future.html 2022-08-09T04:05:00+08:00 Perhaps you have memorized the advertising slogan of "prosperous people, prosperous wealth, prosperous energy and prosperous body", but I bet you didn't buy a Want Want gift pack for the holidays this year.After all, only children love Want Want, adults are buying a mix of Liang Pin Shop, Three Squirrels, Lai Yi Fan, Cha Cha Cha and Want Want. There is little brand loyalty, what you want is a smorgasbord and brand deals. And the more brands each user considers, the less money they spend on individual brands specifically. In that sense, Want Want today is not as high a priority in the snacking world.In order to become the only one among its users again, Want Want has been trying to get rid of its 'mid-life crisis' and make itself 'prosperous' again.The trendiest "old consumer" brand, WantedFounded in 1962, the company has reached the age of 'sixty and ears to the ground' if judged by human standards. But as a company, a well-known brand, any decline in revenue and slowdown in growth is something to reflect on. That's why Want Want has been reflecting for nine years, starting from 2013, the year its revenue exceeded $23.1 billion and net profit was $4.19 billion.In the past nine years, Want Want has been working really hard to revive this 60-year-old brand. These efforts have also made it the most trendy 'old consumer' brand in the new wave of consumption. In short, what young people like, we have to do.Young people like fun marketing, so make it fun.▲ Wanted Gift PackWant Want's original advertising style was an earthy, magical brainwashing style, the next step was to do a fun and light-hearted style. The first step is to enlarge all of Want Want's classic products. The original snow cakes were delicate and cute, three bites each. The snow cakes that have become bigger are already as big as your face, so those with small meals can just take them as a main meal.Together with the big ones, there are also Long Wei Xian, Want Want Xian Bei, Want Want Little Steamed Buns and Want Want Milk ...... Not to mention whether the big ones are good or not, at least the visual impact is there. This wave, Want Want through the "grow up with you snacks" figurative out of the circle once.▲ The snack you used to have gotten biggerIt's not enough for the snacks that grew up with you to get bigger, the commercials you watched when you were little had to get bigger too. So the third grade class 6 student, Li Ziming, became Mr. Li Ziming, and the mother who delivered the Wan Chai milk at the school gate became even more burdened because the Wan Chai milk that grew bigger with it became heavier as well.▲ The ads have grown up tooThe blind box for young people is not left behind either, changing the product users know best into a blind box toy for decompression is also the introduction. The combination of user collecting fetish + blind box play really made Wanzai milk playful, the blind box style bottle of 56 nationalities was like a stamp collection that made users crazy, and all sets of Wanzai milk were auctioned for 3W in idle fish.In addition to the bottle and the product itself change to attract the eye, Want Want also put these elements of the product shape familiar to users into furniture and decompression toys. Simple snacking and decompression toys are put into blind boxes, simulating and decompressing, so you can come and demolish a box.And familiar snacks with furniture also has another kind of fun - small bun sofa, small bun lazy hair, Wantzai milk chair, Wantzai snow cake table lamp ...... which across the screen can smell the fragrance of small bun sofa is the most popular online, to today's official hair a The sofa picture has been expressed in the comment section as a grass.▲ Wanted Little Buns Lazy Boy SofaThe new consumer brands are all in love with co-branding. The brand has come up with canvas shoes in association with Converse, face masks in association with Natural Tong, and clothing brand TYAKASHA to push clothing in association with them. In addition to bottled water, bottled alcoholic beverages and rumors that Want Want is opening an offline coffee shop show the urgency of this old brand not wanting to be left behind.On the way to get closer to the youth, Wanted has been working hard and never wanted to give up.But the reality doesn't change; the IP images Want Want uses to co-brand are familiar, as are the snacks it uses to play fun marketing. They've both been around for decades, which proves that Want Want has basically done nothing new to kill or leave a perception in users' minds over the years; they're still at the stage of eating their old money.Run after the young, not lead the youngThe snack market is constantly full of new products, and every popular new product that exists is a threat to the market share of the old ones. Want Want, which became a snack giant in China during the market gap, certainly can't watch its territory being occupied, so the brand has been working very hard to make new shoots from old trees.Every year, a larger marketing and promotional expenditure is invested in new products, "hair" until now, Want Want's hottest and youngest ace product is still Want Milk.That's the core problem with the whole brand. Marketing can spend money to find enough expensive and good enough marketing company, you are the A party, B party also want to achieve perfection to their own accumulation of cases. But can make the next good enough to drink, delicious drinks and snacks always only rely on their own, after all, those who can create a pop all the competition and friendly business, no one to do charity for you to create a pop.Unfortunately, Want Want's ability to innovate is worrisome, and the rice fruit snacks with the strongest user awareness are not self-developed. The technology for the rice fruit snacks was introduced from Japanese rice fruit manufacturer Iwatsuka Tang, and founder Cai Yanming visited the company for two years before obtaining the technology license.▲ Senbei, Snowcake Decompression ToysEven the innovation is micro-innovation, after that there was also the launch of Follow Me Falami flavor cake, in fact, and the taste of the previous snow cake is not very different, the taste did not break through or in the same place. Wan Chai milk has changed to different packaging, made different flavors, such as chocolate, nut flavor, but the essence is still the same Wan Chai milk you grew up drinking.It may not be all Want Want's fault, after all, there was no rival for years, and it was hard for the brand to have any desire for newness and change when it saw the taillights counting as second place wins. It wasn't until 2014 when gradually declining revenue gave Want Want a head start, with 2016 revenue down by 3.2 billion, that the brand began to catch up.In 2017, Want Want launched more than 50 new products, which include both snacks and juice, coffee and other types of drinks. In 2018 and 2019, Want Want basically kept the frequency of pushing new products at 100+ per year, basically thundering and raining, with little effect.▲ Want Want has been pushing new products frequently in recent yearsThere was also an official "Want Want You Haven't Eaten" collection, which was dubbed by netizens as "Want Want You Don't Remember Much About".Of course having eaten it probably doesn't make much of an impression, maybe even a bad one.Vista Hydrogen Business has placed an order for a giant Want Want gift pack weighing 2.8kg, except for the classic snack, anything that can be rated as mediocre is considered a relatively good review coming in. The Black Sesame Milk Candy, Hell's Spicy Mixed Noodles, and Yukihime Rice Wine all received poor reviews, the Dream Water was rated as "herbal tea with the taste of flower dew", and the Mouthbrake Candy was described as a coffee packet that needs to be brewed with saliva.▲Sukihime Rice WineLet's just say that the heart of trying to carry volume with a big gift bag is clear, but after eating it probably the new product can lose all customers too.You can hardly say that Want Want has not done market research on its new products in recent years, after all, every single one it has come out with has been a success story.Whether it is alcoholic beverages, coffee, low-fat snacks, functional drinks, sparkling water, the market is never short of success stories of great popularity. It may be that it is really difficult to eat to a certain point, and it is really a contemporary snack class, "the poor man's bucket".Although it has failed many times, Want Want has not given up trying. The recently launched "Hi" nutritional drink is its sixth foray into the functional drink circuit, and while past experience shows that success is unlikely, giving up on trying can never be successful.It's hard to argue that these strategies of Want Want are completely ineffective. After all, while the new products didn't hold up, the first half of fiscal 2021 also reported a 10.5 percent year-on-year increase in revenue to about RMB11.38 billion, a record high for the first half of the year since its IPO. But the industry is not very excited about the news, after all, most of the products have already entered the maturity or even decline of Want Want makes people do not see the growth.▲ The packaging of "Will Hi" doesn't look very impressive eitherThere's no doubt Want Want's mid-life crisis has been going on for a long time, and they're now struggling to catch up with younger users. This is a little short of the brands that are leading the young users themselves, and the lack of product power could make it a little more so.In this hard chase, can we see another hot new product from Want Want after 22 years of Want Milk? https://techlife.app/archives/solo-to-the-moon-not-enough-comedy-and-not-enough-sci-fi.html 2022-08-03T04:03:00+08:00 "I was left behind when the floor was all mopped up."Earth is destroyed before you, you're the last human in the universe, but you're not Matt Damon from Mars Rescue, no need to think about how to grow potatoes, there's enough rations on the moon base to last you a lifetime, loneliness and nothingness engulfs you ......Oh no, there's a red giant kangaroo to keep you company, provided you can take a few beatings from it before you call it a brother.Replace this 'you' with Shen Teng, is this a comedy or a tragedy?Adapted from Korean cartoonist Cho Seok's work of the same name, Solo Moon is the result of Happy Flower's first attempt at a science fiction comedy, with the "Shen Ma duo" teaming up again after seven years to star in a feature film.While the buzz and controversy are flying, "Solo Moon" has done well, grossing over 100 million at the box office on demand, 300 million on its first day of release, 1 billion in three days, and 1.3 billion at the current box office, with an opening score of 7.3 on Douban (now down to 6.9).Back to the movie itself, is Solo Moon actually good?(Note: Spoilers below)*The last human nostalgiaThe story takes place in 2033. In order to protect the Earth, mankind deploys the Lunar Shield Project on the Moon, using the Moon as a shield against asteroid impacts. When asteroid π arrives early, the lunar team is evacuated in an emergency. Maintenance worker Doktor Moon (Shen Teng) misses the notification to board the arrow because he rehearses his confession to team leader Ma Lanxing (Ma Li), and becomes the only human left on the moon, and his communication with the team is interrupted.After dodging a meteor shower that hit the moon and witnessing the asteroid π hitting the earth, Doktor Moon thought that the earth had been destroyed (badly damaged but not destroyed) and that he was not only the moon but also the last human in the universe, he started to live a broken life and became a pair of "brothers" with the kangaroo "Gouzi".Without Lone Moon's knowledge, his life on the moon was broadcast live in its entirety. Since there is only video footage and no sound, the official commentary is used to establish Dokurotsuki as a hero and give hope to the people of Earth who are rebuilding their home. Many of the 'social death scenes' make Dokugetsu a harmonic star, and the way he tries to live his life after recognizing his current situation carries a heroic quality.In the end, on the way back to Earth, Dokuroku Moon literally became a hero when he hand-pushed a nuclear bomb to die with π+ in order to destroy the large meteorite π+ left by the asteroid π, which the Earth could not bear.The film is about two main themes. One is that Doktor Moon, an ordinary man who calls himself 'the in-between', is first portrayed as a hero, then returns to the ordinary on camera, and finally becomes a true hero, both small and great.The second is the mutual companionship and salvation of the despondent individual and the depressed collective before a common disaster and under different circumstances. And, of course, these two themes echo each other.Plot-wise, the film retains the main thread of the original, with less religious and war elements, parallel science fiction and comedy elements, and some local adaptation, especially some mythological metaphors.On the way to the base of Lake Everest to pick up the engine, in order to drive the rover with solar energy, Doktor Moon chases the sun in his rover based on the speed of the moon relative to the sun, disguising the daylight for longer, with a sense of Quaalude's vintage.▲ Image from: ETAnd when the sun goes down and the moon buggy loses power, the kangaroo pulls a sleigh cart to take Solo Moon to jump the big crater in an extremely romantic scene, like Chang'e running to the moon, like Santa driving a reindeer cart across the moon, or like the boy and the little alien flying in front of the moon on their bikes in ET. Only in Solo Moon, the setting is changed to Earth.Despite the many moments of alternating hope and despair, Dokugetsu's greatest desire was still to 'go home'.The opposite of 'Going Home' is the loneliness of 'The Last Human', which is sadly under-rendered, perhaps because of Doktor Moon's comedic vibe, or perhaps because of the kangaroo companionship, but a couple of the episodes are still better.Initially believing the Earth to be destroyed, Doktor Moon erects a hearth in the window facing the Earth; later, before deciding to kill himself again, Doktor Moon erects a monument to himself to record the last humans on Earth; recurring in the second half of the film is a cover of Country Roads' "The Road Home"; as the sun sets and the rover loses its temperature, a massive sense of desolation comes over the darkness ......In the flooded universe, human beings and the Earth are just a drop in the ocean. Returning to his homeland, Earth, is still his obsession and even his motivation to stay alive.It's interesting that Doktor Moon dies trying to save the Earth, the kangaroo returns safely to Earth, but a monument to the kangaroo is erected at the end, even though the human heart honors Doktor Moon by accelerating the construction of the Earth-Moon swing rocket and the moon base is littered with his marks. This again seems to dissolve the previous heroic image, and absurdly, it feels like that's just fine.Like Doktor Moon's emphasis on being the 'in-between', he's the ordinary guy with little presence, middle of the road in every metric from size to grades, who eventually perishes and transforms into a ring of stars around the Earth, between the Earth and the Moon, needing no more monuments.His words to Ma Lansing, "This is the only way to save you, you guys," may be a bit of tenderness on the director's part, as family and personal feelings intertwine to make a flesh-and-blood "half-assed" hero.A comedy film with sci-fi as a spiceSince it's a sci-fi comedy, it's important to talk about both the sci-fi and comedy aspects.As a Happy Meal production, "Solo to the Moon" has quite a bit of comedy, but it's not particularly dense, and the second half is largely laugh-out-loud funny, with most of the baggage being slightly boring, such as drinking boiling water with no expression and getting burned in the throat, accidentally falling down the steps in a wheelchair, and pretending to be a mother kangaroo to make a beauty trick on Kongzi ......The only hilarious point in my session was when the broadcast first started and no one expected a kangaroo to appear in front of the camera instead of a person, the fast-talking anchor dubbed it "what a meta day" and the rest of the time there was sparse laughter.And as a sci-fi film, is "Solo Moon" good enough?Visually speaking, 95% of the film's shots involve special effects, and were done by the domestic VFX company MORE VFX, which is no less impressive than "Wandering Earth". The latter has more than 2,000 shots, 75% of which were made in China, and was done by a team of six VFX companies, one of which was MORE VFX.Not only the special effects team, "Solo Moon" also inherited the six-axis platform device that "Wandering Earth" had used to simulate the bumps of a lunar rover in its travels. Chinese science fiction films have the initial model of 'passing on' in the field of industrial technology.The crew built a 100% live-action lunar base, using 15 studios totaling over 40,000 square meters. 200 tons of sand and gravel were laid in a 6,000-square-meter studio to simulate the real moon dust.In addition, Kangaroo Kongzi's 'performance' is vivid and realistic, with his image resembling the muscular Australian netizen Roger the Kangaroo, whose appearance is completed by a combination of live action motion capture and special effects, and the actor behind it is Hao Han of Happy Flower.But there are still quite a few hard hitters in terms of setting.The Moon Shield team is evacuated in an emergency precisely to avoid a meteorite, but the lone moon is unharmed after the meteor strike; the lone moon is kicked by a kangaroo, leaving two shallow marks in its stomach, and still alive and well; to show that the Earth is not destroyed, people use flashlights and searchlights to illuminate the sky so that not only can the lone moon see the light, but they also tacitly spell out a complete sentence... ...Maybe that's the main character aura, or what's needed to move the plot along.The comedic elements and sci-fi settings in the movie have some "on and off" feel to them, not to the point of being amazing, but everything is there and the integrity of the story is preserved, as evidenced by the 6.9 Douban rating.In an interview with Beijing Youth Daily, asked how to grasp the degree of comedy and science fiction, director Zhang Eat Fish replied.Sci-fi is the shell, and what's inside is really up to us. For example, we have a bowl, which may look very futuristic, but it contains rice that you would normally eat."Rice in a futuristic bowl", and some of the movie's sequences do feel that way. The audience understands why it was done, but it's hard to get real without having to delve into the plausibility, like how successful the Moon Shield program was, why the asteroid hit suddenly, and why the scientists had no warning when the second one hit.Of course, sometimes it's pointless to get right or wrong. As Song Mingwei, Associate Professor of East Asia at Wellesley College in the United States, has pointed out.The hard science in science fiction is more a matter of right and wrong, but it is not a parody of reality, but the construction of a heterotopia, an alternative mirror image of reality constructed from logical and sensory structures ...... More important than whether its scientific knowledge is wrong is whether the world it constructs itself is self-consistent.But the 'self-referential' nature of Solo Moon is accomplished in one set-up after another, with π+ appearing just as Solo Moon returns to the space station, which is why Solo Moon dies a heroic death at the end and the internet spits out comedy hard sensationalism.▲ Director Chang eats fish.Meanwhile, while the scenes are about realistic construction and the special effects are taken seriously, the comic book gene, comedic elements and exaggerated performances make LONE RUNNER TO THE MOON less realistic than the director had hoped to achieve.Chang Eat Fish himself is a fan of anime and was drawn to the absurd comedic overtones of the original manga, so he decided to bring the story to the screen. For him, it was the fun 'comic sense' story he always wanted to make.The sci-fi genre paved by its predecessors plus a comedy genre that the market just needs, Solo Moon is more like a comedy film with sci-fi spice, the science may not be much more rigorous but sincerely about the warmth and romance of the individual, easing the collective post-apocalyptic anxiety.Finding domestic sci-fi outside of "Wandering Earth" and "Walk Alone on the MoonThere's a flirtatious reference to Wandering Earth in Solo Moon, and the two films do have subtle commonalities, especially the choice of protagonist at the end.Similar to "Solo Moon", "Wandering Earth" has the core of Yugong Yishan, and in the midst of the post-apocalyptic redemption, it points to the homeland emotion and family feeling of the nation.However, after "Wandering Earth" in the 2019 Chinese New Year, it seems that there is no more domestic science fiction movie that is good and popular.In the same slot as Wandering Earth, Crazy Aliens is an adaptation of Liu Cixin's The Village Teacher. The film itself is a black comedy and earthy sci-fi in the style of Ning Hao, taking the shell of the original and making its own story, satirizing class concepts, cultural differences, and nationalism.Shanghai Fortress, released in August 2019, is a pseudo-sci-fi romance with a 2.9 Douban rating, but the sci-fi and romance are both incestuous.The recently released "Mozart from Outer Space," which flopped at the box office and by word of mouth, was tagged as sci-fi, comedy, and family, but was not called sci-fi, just an exploration of generational conflicts under a fantasy veneer, and was far less well-received than "CK7".Then there's Solo Moon, an adaptation of a Korean comic that's passable in terms of ratings and reviews.Science fiction discusses a myriad of possibilities about the future, but it is also tied to the times. Others argue that science fiction is not really about the future, but about the present.▲ Image from: The Black PlanetIn the end credits of the 1974 American science fiction film Black Planet, the astronaut talks to the sentient bomb about life and existentialism, urging it to desist from exploding. .And Solo Moon tells a story that is both brutal and tender. Ma Lansing knows that 'no one deserves to be sacrificed', but she still abandons Doktor Moon twice; Doktor Moon learns that she's been live for months after communications are restored and just smiles in silence before accepting the status quo, and the Moon's version of Truman's World doesn't end up going dark.To briefly summarize the mindset of Doktor Moon throughout the film, it starts with the brokenness of coming all the way here, then the loneliness and desolation of having nothing to dissipate, then the ecstasy of returning to human society after communications are restored, and finally moves on to the grand narrative and saving humanity.The future of domestic sci-fi may be able to escape the trope and have more imagination.Science fiction writer Hanson once said.China has long been a large agricultural country, and the rise of a truly sustained science fiction fever was relatively late. The lessons that Western science fiction has taught us are that the creative genre has to be more inclusive, the imagination has to be a bit more liberated, it has to keep up with the frontier developments in science and technology, it has to confront the most untold problems of humanity, and it has to challenge the rules set by its predecessors with a fearless spirit; they are not always right.▲ Image from: 2001 A Space Odyssey2001 A Space Odyssey revels in the 'eternal silence of infinite space', Does the Bionic Man Dream of Electric Sheep has Riker as Sisyphus caught up in the question of the meaning of life, and Mars Rescue is a straightforward look at how an astronaut solves problems in the midst of survival and then returns home as he wishes.Sci-fi is all encompassing, and can be as grand as discussing the civilization of the universe and the fate of mankind, or as inwardly exploring oneself, as emotionally charged under a hardcore shell, or even as just pointlessly ridiculous. Expect to see more domestic sci-fi films on the silver screen that are different from and more exciting than Solo Moon. https://techlife.app/archives/synthetic-diamonds-are-cheaper-but-diamonds-are-no-longer-a-necessity-for-young-people.html 2022-08-02T20:01:00+08:00 This session of young people can not, are going to buy artificial diamonds, resulting in the performance of natural diamond giants continue to decline ...... artificial diamonds are more pure, more beautiful color, the price is cheaper 90%, DeBeers said natural diamonds have impurities to be a symbol of status, Yiwu boss said this is not easy, I add impurities to you into the line.It's a standard 'cool' story, a collection of popular elements such as price butcher, hanging on to seniors, and Yiwu can do anything, easily catching everyone's attention. But cultivated diamonds are more of a less 'cool' story. Cultivated diamonds have revolutionized the way diamonds are produced and the price, but this innovation is still very difficult to 'downgrade' natural diamonds in terms of price and positioning.Cultivating diamonds, still not cheapZircon and Moissanite diamonds, this is what some people understand by man-made diamonds. They are indeed man-made, but they are not cultivated diamonds.It's like the concepts of meat, artificial meat, and vegetarian meat, which can always cause a lot of misunderstanding. Meat is real meat, artificial meat is real meat, it's just lab-grown real meat, and vegetarian meat is fake meat, it just strives to be closer to meat in terms of taste and texture.Zircon and Moissanite diamonds are 'fake meat' in this sense. They are 'imitation diamond' products, and unlike the pure carbon of diamonds, zircon and moissanite diamonds are essentially zirconium oxide and silicon carbide.▲ Imitation DiamondCultivated diamonds are more like 'artificial meat', they are synthetic diamonds that have been grown in a laboratory to simulate the natural environment in which natural diamonds form. Lab-grown diamonds are chemically, physically, and optically 'real' diamonds, but instead of taking hundreds of millions of years to form, like natural diamonds, the environment in which they can form is simulated in a scientific and efficient way, and the time is drastically reduced.There are also two methods of cultivating diamonds, the high temperature and high pressure method (HTHP), which uses graphite and diamond powder as the carbon source to simulate the diamond growth environment, and the CVD method, in which thin slices of diamonds are placed in a vacuum chamber filled with hydrogen and methane and a uniform diamond coating is formed under specific pressure.Both have to be done in a lab and cost more compared to imitation diamond products, so the overall price is not as maddening as zircon and moissanite diamonds.Data from Ping An Securities data shows that 1 carat of cultivated diamonds costs $8,000 to $15,000, while 1 carat of loose diamonds of medium quality costs $30,000 to $50,000. That is to say, the price of cultivated diamonds is still not cheap, and will be the same as natural diamonds with the same standards, only it may be in the 4C natural diamond price of about 10% ~ 40%, part of the backing of the big brand of cultivated diamonds prices are only a little cheaper than natural diamonds.Of course cultivated diamonds still have a lot of room to grow in terms of price - after all, it doesn't take hundreds of millions of years to cycle. And as the technology gets more sophisticated, lower prices for cultivated diamonds are a predictable change. According to statistics, the retail price of cultivated diamonds has been reduced by 30% from 2017 to 2020 alone.As a laboratory product, increased production efficiency is profitable for natural diamonds, and it is not impossible for the price of cultivated diamonds to fall when their production efficiency increases.There are more cultivated diamonds, there is still a market for natural diamondsSince cultivated diamonds are also real diamonds, it seems logical that natural diamonds would also be hit by cultivated diamonds and that prices would fall.But on the contrary, natural diamonds are more expensive.According to the IDEX International Diamond Trading Platform, the January 2022 Finished Diamond Price Index jumped 5.67%, surpassing the 4.35% increase in December 2021 and making it the largest one-month increase since December 2011.▲ Promotion of Natural Diamonds Real is RareThe reasons for this are complex. First, the existence of the epidemic so that the global mining industry shut down production, the supply side can supply less natural diamonds, the price naturally went up; second, the supply of less demand is not less, and even more demand changes, the epidemic led to part of the retaliatory consumption and the inability to travel abroad to inhibit the enthusiasm of consumption was moved to the diamond, the demand is strong supply exceeds demand.In December 2020, De Beers began raising the price of rough diamonds, and six more times in 2021. The overall price change curve is not at all similar to that of cultivated diamonds, which can be said to play out in their own way.In an interview with Bazaar Jewelry, Lian Guoyan, author of the book "Diamond Investment Buyer's Guide", also said that the price of natural diamonds is unlikely to fall. "According to the historical trajectory of more than three decades, it seems that once the price of diamonds has sharply adjusted upwards, it is unlikely to correct sharply downwards again (unless major international impact factors occur), and will probably do selective parts and small waves of climbing in the future while remaining in a relatively stable state.In addition to changes on the supply and demand side of the market, users may also be eating more of the older, more expensive and more prestigious option of natural diamonds.Soda Cake, who got married two years ago, said she also purchased a natural diamond ring when she got married, and even though it was stuffed in a drawer after the wedding, it was still an essential wedding expense. In her area of southern Minnesota, the traditional customs of marriage are taken very seriously, and there is a higher budget for consumer spending, and even relatives and friends will directly ask about the price of jewelry during the wedding, so buying natural diamonds is a natural choice in this case.The man will indirectly and unintentionally say how much money spent on diamond ring ...... diamonds in addition to the newcomers themselves to wear, in Minnan is more of an attitude of the male elders to the female elders, to show my family's economic strength as well as sincerity. Diamond is a recent fire, Minnan more gold, just are so spell gold jewelry (face problems), the diamond is also not let go.In this case, natural diamonds may be sold at a higher price than cultivated diamonds, and are not "in the same league".Natural diamond brands have not been idle in nurturing diamonds to be more widely known, and many have joined forces to launch the 'Real is Rare' campaign, telling you that pure natural diamonds are much more precious. Coupled with the fact that natural diamonds themselves are a non-renewable type, taking hundreds of millions of years to obtain, there are many people who will be impressed by this natural gemstone that has been formed over hundreds of millions of years.Just as the original diamond advertisement "Diamonds are forever, one will last forever" has touched young people for half a century, perhaps "Real is Rare" can also retain new young users.It's not cultivation that's affecting natural diamonds, it's the new quest of the youngJust in the face of natural diamonds hundreds of millions of years of time condensed gemstones and pure natural properties propaganda, cultivated diamonds are not defenseless, because cultivated diamonds in energy saving and environmental protection can completely take natural diamonds. Without the need for large mining equipment or underground excavation, cultivated diamonds in the laboratory have become an environmentally friendly, low-carbon option for some young people.And the other part of the young people, they are not obsessed with diamonds."It's not just that I don't want diamonds, I don't want to get married straight away." Fang, a recent graduate, says she is not a fan of the romance and long-lasting meaning behind diamonds. For her, diamonds are something she never expected to spend, and she has no intention of saving up to buy herself a diamond.Having worked for four years as an advertising professional, Douban's knowledge of not buying diamonds is more out of her understanding of marketing.Diamonds are more of an artificially created scarcity I guess! I admire it as one of the most famous marketing examples in advertising, but I also think it's a bit like paying an IQ tax to spend that much money on a gem that is forced to be scarce. I think it's a bit like a blind box of scarcity wares that can go very high or very low in price, an investment that doesn't really hold its value.Douban herself likes bright diamonds, but doesn't feel the attraction of natural diamonds can make her spend so much money. She said she would not even choose cultivated diamonds if she bought them, but would choose what everyone sees as fake diamonds moissanite, and wear them as ordinary accessories without a lot of psychological burden.Oranges preparing for marriage are also in the stage of life where they are choosing a wedding ring, diamonds are among their options but not the only one. Diamonds, coloured gemstones, platinum and gold are all considered, but when buying they give more priority to suitability and price, and diamonds have to be compared to other materials.In fact, gold, which retains its value, has become the choice of more and more young people than diamonds, which young people are familiar with through marketing. Orange, for one, has grown to love gold: "I used to think it was rustic, but now I think it looks best."According to the World Jewellery Association, the diamond purchase rate of newlywed women in China's first-tier cities is 61%, while the penetration rate in third and fourth-tier cities is only 37%. China's jewelry consumption is tilted to the gold market. And in this year's Taobao Tmall station, the entire gold category exploded more than 1700%, with the post-90s population accounting for 50%.It is true that there are still people who see diamond rings as a standard part of marriage, but there are also people who are beginning to think more about preservation of value and personalization options when acquiring these keepsake accessories. Moving away from the gemstone category, young people have a different need for accessories, and the ability of diamonds to be the most important part of that need is far more important than cultivating diamonds for natural diamonds.After all, in addition to being constant, a diamond's existence needs someone to recognize its value.Only by being recognized by more people can a diamond's brilliance be given more meaning. https://techlife.app/archives/tiktok-is-growing-and-so-is-the-vigilance-of-governments-over-it.html 2022-07-21T11:00:00+08:00 On July 9, The Economist published a cover story, "Who's Afraid of TikTok?", reviewing the growth and worldwide popularity of TikTok and its struggles amidst commercial competition and geopolitical siege. A decade ago, The Economist ran a cover story, "Who's Afraid of Huawei? . In a way, TikTok's current predicament is similar to Huawei's.The Economist reports that TikTok is under increasing regulatory pressure and that governments are wary of TikTok for different reasons, "fearing that user data could fall under undue control or that what users watch could be swayed by China, which has banned it in India, once its biggest market. And other countries, including the U.S., are considering what their next move should be."A cat struggles to see what's on the kitchen counter, first standing on its front legs, leaping on its hind feet and then leaping upwards to get a better look - but the moment it sees the tinfoil on the counter it jumps backwards like an electric shock. The video, which is just six seconds long but has more than 40 million views, has been listed as one of the "hottest" videos on TikTok in recent memory.Cat videos are a common laughing stock on late-night TV. But the hundreds of millions of TikTok clips that include cat videos are keeping some politicians in Silicon Valley and the West awake with worry. The app is growing at a rate that is alarming competitors and regulators alike. In just five years, it has moved into the top tier of global social media, a field that U.S. officials once considered so closed off and hindering competition that they filed an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook, a leading member of the field.As TikTok quickly draws in a large number of users and the advertising dollars that come with them, some of its larger competitors are starting to mimic it to rewrite their own apps. The shakeup may not end there: the entry of TikTok into the e-commerce space could disrupt another industry.Governments are wary of TikTok for different reasons. As the first Chinese consumer-facing app to spring up in the West, TikTok is a presence that China can be proud of. But precisely because the app belongs to China, politicians in other countries are also deeply troubled as they see their citizens' attention captured ever more tightly by TikTok.They fear that users' data could fall under undue control or that what users are watching could be swayed by China, where TikTok has already been banned in India, once its largest market. And other countries, including the U.S., are considering what their next move should be.Just a decade ago, Zhang Yiming, a bookish Chinese entrepreneur a year older than Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, founded a software company called ByteHop. The company's first creations included 'Neihan Duanzi', a platform for sharing jokes, and 'Today's Headlines', a news aggregation site. These apps use artificial intelligence (AI) to learn what kind of segments or stories users like. Both apps were a huge success; today, Today's Headlines is the largest news aggregator in China, with 360 million users.Soon, ByteDive wanted to explore what else recommendation algorithms could do. in 2016, ByteDive released 'ShakeYin', an app for recording and sharing lip-sync videos. ShakeYin mimicked Musical.ly, another Chinese-made lip-syncing app that was popular among young Americans, but ShakeYin benefited from ByteHop's artificial intelligence recommendation engine, which was more powerful than Musical.ly, and became a huge hit.The following year, ByteDance released a sibling version of Jitterbug outside of China; the two applications have similar interfaces and algorithms, but the content is independent of each other. The app uses the same logo as Jitterbug, a quivering musical note, but with a more trendy name: TikTok.At first, TikTok received little attention outside of Asia. But in 2017, ByteBeat acquired Musical.ly and quickly moved its 100 million users to TikTok. since then, TikTok has grown like no other app. in September 2021, a little over four years after TikTok was born, it reached 1 billion users, a milestone that Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram took eight years to reach a milestone (but, then again, fewer people were online then than now). Since early 2020, TikTok has been the most downloaded mobile app in the world. Younger audiences aren't too keen on Facebook, but are fascinated by TikTok. Data firm eMarketer believes that about 44% of TikTok's users in the US are under 25, while only 16% of Facebook's users are under 25.TikTok makes making videos easy. It does for video editing what Instagram did for photo editing a decade ago, enabling amateurs to turn botched videos into slick-looking movies. Not only that, but its AI recommendation algorithm makes it possible for lesser-known grassroots creators to achieve the kind of viral success that would be difficult to achieve in an app like Facebook, which rewards those who already have a large following.While the biggest individual accounts on Facebook are athletes, singers or other celebrities, the top TikTok bloggers are known for being TikTok creators. Khaby Lame of Senegal, a creator of short silent humor videos, is the number one TikTok blogger with 146 million followers. Star creators are given preferential treatment and even paid by TikTok as long as they stay on the TikTok platform.TikTok lowers the bar not only for creation, but also for viewing. While most social media apps recommend content to users from their network of friends, TikTok doesn't require a network of people, a search, or even a login: its algorithm picks videos from its vast archive and will go on to learn viewers' preferences. The format makes it easy to get hooked. In the US, the average TikTok user spends 46 minutes a day on the app, slightly longer than they spend on YouTube and 16 minutes more than they spend on Facebook or Instagram.TikTok is rapidly cashing in on the attention of its users. According to eMarketer projections, TikTok's revenue was about $4 billion last year, will reach $12 billion this year and $23 billion in 2024, almost entirely from advertising. That's more than Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest and other second-tier social media apps, and on par with YouTube. Judging by its Chinese twin, Jitterbug, TikTok will likely continue to grow. According to brokerage Bernstein, users spend an average of 100 minutes a day on Jieyin, which accounts for more than 12 percent of the total time Chinese spend online. In addition to Jitterbug, ByteBeat has several popular apps in China and had a 28 percent share of the country's digital ad market last year, outpacing rivals like Tencent and Baidu and growing.Jitterbug, on the other hand, shows the promise of TikTok profiting in areas other than advertising. TikTok is now a major force in the e-commerce space, using live stars to market its products in a model that resembles a 21st-century dress redux of a TV shopping channel. While TikTok's first attempt at live-streaming with merchandise (i.e. the November 2021 launch of TikTok stores in the UK and Indonesia) is currently a failure, TikTok is unlikely to give up easily in this direction.TikTok's competitors are deeply disturbed. In April, Zuckerberg announced that Facebook's news feed - which for 16 years has primarily shown users content posted by their friends - would become a "discovery engine" that uses artificial intelligence to deliver content from content from all over the Internet - just like TikTok does. He mentioned TikTok five times during an earnings call in February, and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has developed a TikTok-like short-form video service called Reels, which it has incorporated into both apps.Such clones are everywhere: Snapchat Spotlight, YouTube Shorts, Pinterest Watch, and even Netflix's Fast Laughs. some of these products are succeeding. Reels, for example, account for more than 20% of the time users spend on Instagram, and YouTube Shorts has 1.5 billion users per month, which is probably more than TikTok has.But on the flip side, TikTok is also taking some cues from its competitors. It has raised the length limit of its videos to 10 minutes, thus eating into part of YouTube's market. It has introduced a 'read-and-burn' feature, modelled on Snapchat's 'stories' model. It is testing a paid subscription model, similar to that of Amazon's live video platform Twitch, where fans pay to access the creator's channel. It has also recently started paying some creators a cut of ad revenue, as YouTube has always done.In a market that has long been considered uncompetitive, these aforementioned disruptions to the original situation are often beneficial.In 2020, the Federal Trade Commission launched an antitrust suit against Meta Universe (Meta). Now that TikTok is taking users and advertisers away from Meta Universe (Meta), whose market cap has fallen by more than half this year, one need not worry too much about the lack of competition in this market.TikTok's parent company, ByteTok, is registered in the Cayman Islands and has investors from all over, including the U.S.-based General Atlantic and Japan's SoftBank. SoftBank.) General Atlantic's boss, Bill Ford, who also sits on ByteTok's board, describes it as "a global Internet company with a Chinese heritage, not a Chinese Internet company". But the company's headquarters are in Beijing. Like other large Chinese companies, it is subject to both formal and informal Chinese influences.What will China want with TikTok? Hawks believe there are two demands. First, China would want access to the data of TikTok's more than a billion users. There is no evidence that TikTok is collecting information it shouldn't. The University of Toronto's Citizen Lab concluded last year that there is no indication that TikTok or Jitterbug is collecting users' address book, photos, audio, video or location data without permission. The lab found that Jitterbug has some features, such as 'dynamic code loading' (i.e. loading additional code at runtime), that might be considered dishonest practices outside of China; but TikTok does none of these.However, like most social apps, TikTok collects information about customers' phones, usage patterns and locations, and uses third-party tracking services. Under Chinese law, the government can require Chinese companies to provide more or less any data, including data stored abroad. For this reason, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) - a panel led by the U.S. Treasury Department that reviews national security risks involved in transactions - ordered in 2020 that a Chinese company's revocation of Grindr's acquisition of Grindr, a dating app that keeps track of users' sexual behavior and HIV status, among other things.TikTok says that the Chinese government has never asked for their users' data, nor has it ever provided it to the company (although some senior staff have admitted privately that they may not be aware of it, if at all). TikTok users are at less risk of being blackmailed than Grindr. However, James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (a U.S. think tank) points out that intelligence agencies' biological databases mine information from social media as a routine operation. The government wants to register this 'biometric fingerprint' information and match it with other information about individuals, and it would be much easier to use data that comes directly from TikTok, rather than scraping it from the web. And, if TikTok's ambition to expand its reach comes to fruition, the company will know not just what its users look and sound like, but what they buy and where they live.In 2020, India banned TikTok and several other Chinese apps. Although the ban was prompted by a border conflict, India's published reason was that the apps 'stole and surreptitiously transmitted' information from Indian users. Two months later, then-President Donald Trump issued an executive order requiring TikTok to be sold to a U.S. company within 45 days or face a ban on the grounds that it was collecting vast amounts of information that "could potentially allow China to track the location of federal employees and contractors, build profiles of personal information for extortion, and conduct corporate espionage." (Bytehop successfully defeated the order in court; Trump's successor, Joe Biden, rescinded it)TikTok has tried to quell such concerns by keeping foreign user data outside of China. Doing so, however, doesn't make much sense: A report last month by online news media company BuzzFeed found that TikTok staff in China had accessed U.S. user data on multiple occasions as late as January of this year. 'You can see everything in China,' said a member of TikTok's trust and safety department.On June 17, TikTok announced that U.S. users' traffic will henceforth be sent through servers operated by Oracle, a U.S. company that has a a similar contract. For Chinese workers to access U.S. users' data, they will have to follow protocols overseen by a U.S. security team. Those details are being finalized with U.S. authorities. If U.S. authorities approve, the practice could be replicated elsewhere.But there is a second concern about security, and a more serious one - it's not what TikTok is getting from users, but what users are getting from it. The app positions itself as an entertainment platform, providing content to 'brighten up your day'. But as it has grown, the content it produces has covered an increasingly wide range of topics. About a third of TikTok users see it as a news source, according to the Reuters Institute at Oxford University. In countries where mainstream media is weaker, the percentage is even higher: about half of people in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand use TikTok to get their news. Young people are the most avid TikTok users, so they are also more likely than others to get their news from it. Meanwhile, mainstream media outlets are using TikTok to promote their content (The Economist launched a TikTok channel this week).TikTok's emergence as an increasingly important news platform has raised concerns that it is, in the words of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), "a Trojan horse that the Chinese Communist Party can use to influence what Americans see, hear, and ultimately think.Nana Li of the watchdog Corporate Governance Institute Asia is skeptical that the Chinese government is directing TikTok content. Given the popularity of TikTok outside of China, I don't think they're going to take that risk," she says. If they do, all Chinese companies overseas will pay a reputational price, and what's the point?"Nonetheless, it's surprising that American teens' favorite access to entertainment - and now increasingly their favorite access to news - is, after all, run by China. Rasmus Nielsen of the Reuters Institute points out that most countries have regulations in place that go to limit foreign ownership of traditional media companies. In general, he notes, media mergers are subject to more scrutiny than other deals because once ownership is concentrated, it affects more than just product pricing. Social media platforms, by contrast, have few regulatory constraints in most democracies. Last month, Brendan Carr, a member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) appointed by Mr. Trump, called on Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores, but the FCC couldn't force the companies to do so.It is easy for institutions to monitor the content produced by traditional media like newspapers or television stations; but it is difficult for institutions to know what people actually see on their personalized social media. sputnik and Russia Today, Kremlin-linked news channels, were blocked in many Western countries in March this year after the EU said they had engaged in "systematic The EU said it had engaged in "systematic manipulation of information and disinformation" about the war in Ukraine. It's harder to know if TikTok users are being affected by "disinformation campaigns in favor of China," as Mr. Trump's executive order claims, and TikTok has promised to allow third-party review of its algorithms as part of its deal with Oracle.Will this satisfy its critics? ByteTok is eager to build a firmer foundation for its international business. Even as TikTok's popularity soars, uncertainty abroad and domestic policies toward tech companies have somewhat affected its parent company. US investment manager Tiger Global has cut its valuation of ByteTok by about a third since the start of the year, to below $300 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal. There were rumors of an initial public offering last year, but that no longer seems likely. Last year, ByteDive founder Zhang Yiming stepped down as CEO and chairman.Some at TikTok have compared the dilemma they face to the suspicion that befell Japanese companies in the West in the 1980s. But the reality is more complicated than that analogy. Last year, Mr. Biden signed an executive order setting out the criteria on which the government should base its assessment of the risks involved in apps linked to foreign adversaries, including China. The government is reportedly working on new regulations for foreign software that focus on data misuse.CFIUS, the panel that unwound the Grindr acquisition deal, is also reviewing TikTok and is under increasing pressure to press for a report (six Republican senators sent a letter of urgency to the Treasury Department on June 24). The panel could order the revocation of the Musical.ly deal, which has been in effect for five years - which would make the situation extremely complicated, and the panel might even revive Mr. Trump's plan to force ByteTok to sell TikTok's U.S. business. Given TikTok's popularity, CFIUS might find that a more convenient solution would be some combination of both accepting the company's partnership with Oracle and opening the app's algorithms to external scrutiny.However, China may not agree to those terms.In 2020, when Trump demanded the sale of TikTok's U.S. business, China passed a law classifying TikTok's recommendation algorithm as sensitive technology, which could prevent the company from selling TikTok to a foreign company. Adam Segal of the Council on Foreign Relations suspects that the law could also bar TikTok from allowing U.S. regulators to scrutinize its code more closely.China would probably rather have TikTok pulled out of the US than hand it over. For its part, the U.S. could be faced with the choice of either losing the world's hottest app or ignoring the risks. At some point, Mr. Siegel said, "one side will have to compromise. https://techlife.app/archives/a-journey-to-capture-the-beauty-of-daocheng-yading-details.html 2022-07-18T11:13:00+08:00 What do you imagine summer to be like? Having a trip to say goodbye is what makes a life a full summer. Go somewhere refreshingly secluded and quietly enjoy the flavors of summer.via: little volvokoAll the details need an eye that can find beauty in Daocheng Yading, a paradise hidden between mountains and waters. It is located in a quiet and peaceful town, refreshing and comfortable in the high summer season. Fall in love with it with just one glance, and you'll be hooked.via: mutedRiverIn summer, there is an occasional drizzle in Inacheng Daocheng Yading, and the rain nourishes the living creatures here. In the drizzle of Daocheng Yading, it does not look humid but more fresh and has a kind of hazy beauty. In such weather, staying in a characteristic house, looking through the window at the drizzle of Daocheng Yading, and drinking a cup of rich ghee tea, a sense of comfort arises.via：Lullaby_lu、nanaazzzWhen the mountain dense fog, hazy like a ribbon wrapped around the mountainside, such as a light gauze, floating in the mountains. At one time the whole valley appeared more immortal, as if a natural ink painting.via：ODINqwqWhen the sunlight spills over the peaks, the white snow-capped mountains refract a golden light, and the beauty of that sunlit mountain is its own unique sense of shock. Like a warrior clad in golden armor, it stands in the distance, guarding the creatures it loves.via: mutedRiverWhen the breeze blows the surface of the lake and the sunlight covers the water, that swirls and ripples in circles, all in dazzling sparkling waves. The sea is silently hidden between the mountains and forests, shining with blue light. That pure blue, deep and quiet, giving a sense of mystery.via: Zhang Qi Ling Thia, Muted RiverWhen the leaves are dappled into shadows, you will find that every corner of Daocheng Yading is a beautiful picture. The shadows are shifting and swaying, and the flowers have blossomed all over the hillside. It is a paradise for the eyes and a sanctuary to escape the summer heat.via: who's little Zhang students ac, nanaazzzThis journey, use your eyes to see the beauty, and then discover the beauty revealed in those details!Tips For Scenic Spot Tour Scenic spot tour warm tips 1. Daocheng Yading scenic area is located in the plateau, the weather is volatile, please prepare cold clothing, anti plateau hypoxia drugs, sunscreen supplies and rain gear; drink more water, avoid strenuous exercise. People suffering from heart disease, respiratory disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, high myopia and other disease history caution to go.In accordance with the safety management requirements of scenic spots, visitors are prohibited from bringing fire sources (lighters, matches, etc.) into the scenic spots; bringing civilian unmanned aerial vehicles, pets, etc. into the scenic spots is prohibited; entering non-excursion areas is prohibited, and camping in the scenic spots is strictly prohibited; during the tour, do not tease wild animals to prevent bites.During the tour, please do a good job of personal protection, strictly implement preventive and control measures such as sweeping the code, body temperature detection, wearing a mask, maintain a social distance of more than 1 meter, and obey the management of the staff of the scenic spot.Do not believe in "low-priced tour group" "professionals to lead the way" "enthusiastic recommendation of the hometown", beware of the black guide black dealer trap.Scenic consultation phone: 0836-6966022. complaint phone: 0836-6966021.Rescue phone number: 0836-6966027 (duty office), 13684498848.Special Tips For Challenge TourChallenge Tour (challenge line) tour special tips Daocheng Yading scenic area milk sea, five-color sea area altitude of 4500 meters above sea level, oxygen thin, the weather is variable, plus the tour need to hike the whole (round trip about 10 km), some tourists easy plateau reaction resulting in physical discomfort, for your health and safety considerations, it is recommended that For the sake of your health and safety, it is recommended that the following people should not go there.Patients with heart, brain and blood vessel diseases and hypertension.Persons with altitude sickness, mental disorders, fear of heights.Pregnant women in the early and late stages of pregnancy and persons with reduced mobility.Patients with lung diseases, asthma and other respiratory diseases.The elderly and less fit persons are advised not to visit the area. https://techlife.app/archives/the-earliest-caravans-in-china-a-brief-history-of-the-development-of-the-world-s-caravans.html 2022-07-06T03:04:00+08:00 There is no doubt that the RV market in the world today is dominated by European and American countries, while the RV market in China is still in a booming stage of development.When tracing the history of caravans, European and American academics generally define caravans as "road vehicles with sleeping facilities designed for leisure purposes", where the definition of "road vehicles" is not limited to self-powered vehicles with internal combustion engines, but also includes horse-drawn carriages. The earliest prototypes of caravans are generally recognized in European and American scholarship as the horse-drawn caravans of Rome in the first world; modern caravans are the horse-drawn caravans of the early 19th century; and modern self-powered caravans began in the late 19th century with the rise of the internal combustion engine.A restored 1st century AD Roman 'carriage' with basic sleeping facilities Photo by Römisch-Germanisches, Germany However, when it comes to carriages, we Chinese are no strangers to them, as we see them everywhere in costume dramas, and the size of them seems to make it easy to put down a bed. Did ancient China have carriages with sleeping facilities like the Roman carriages?The world's first caravans were in China?In June 2017, in the "Zheng State No. 3 Carriage Pit" of the "Zheng Han Forbidden City" in Xinzheng, Henan Province, which has been under archaeological excavation since the 1960s, another batch of "fragrant cars and horses" from more than 2,400 years ago was unearthed. One of the saddle carriage is the largest and most luxurious carriage found in the "Zheng Han Forbidden City" at that time, and Sun Chunling, the excavation project site manager, introduced "according to the present day, it is just like a luxury carriage, it was a carriage for the king to go out for inspection, visit, or hunting, and could also lie down to rest when tired. The car was about 2.1 meters long and 1.6 meters wide, with brown and brown-red paint flakes on the canopy and traces of matting on the canopy, so it can be inferred that it had sleeping facilities.It is interesting to note that Confucius had bluntly stated that "to release the sound of Zheng is to distant sycophants; the sound of Zheng is obscene, and sycophants are dangerous", and Mencius also implicitly defined the sound of Zheng and Wei as "worldly music", which is not on the same level as pure ritual music. This shows that the people in the Zheng region were more spontaneous and liked to enjoy themselves; in addition, Xia Ji, one of the four most recognized beauties of the Spring and Autumn Period, who was a siren and adulterer and had committed adultery with several vassals and great officials, came from Zheng. With such a popular style, it is only natural that such a luxurious caravan would appear in Zheng. "Zheng Han Forbidden City" excavation site Photo source CNN No coincidence, in the Ming Dynasty, Wang Shizhen's "Biography of the Chief Minister since Jiajing" also recorded a luxury "caravan The anecdote of a luxury "caravan" is also recorded in Wang Shizhen's "Biography of the Chief Minister since Jiajing" of the Ming Dynasty.According to records, when Zhang Juzheng's father died in the sixth year of the reign of Emperor Wanli and Empress Li, Zhang Juzheng, the first minister, returned home in a hurry after only three months of taking care of his father's funeral. On the way, "Juzheng sat on a gaiter, which was created by Qian Pu, the guardian of Zhending, to serve. In front of it was a heavy room, and behind it was a bedchamber for resting. The two hipped wings were each decorated with a child, and the left and right attendants waved incense for the toys, which were lifted by 32 pawns.Although in a sense, the world's first 'caravans' were probably in China, they were limited to the powerful class and were not common. In terms of the systematic development of caravans, we still have to move our attention back to Europe and America.It could be argued that wagons used for long-distance travel were the prototype of the modern caravan. Unlike carriages that were generally used to carry goods or people for short distances, these carriages were often enclosed structures to withstand rain and high winds, had a simple suspension structure for shock absorption, and had flat floors inside for comfort because they had to seat people for long periods of time.In modern times, the first use of horse-drawn carriages for accommodation was by the owners of European circuses and zoos in the early nineteenth century, who often stayed in their horse-drawn caravans when they travelled to different regions for touring shows and exhibitions, in order to facilitate the care of their animals and to save money. In Dickens' novel The Old Curiosity Shop, published in 1840, it is described that when Mrs. Jarley, the wax shop owner, went around to show her wax exhibits, her horse-drawn caravan often housed homeless preachers and journeymen doctors on the road.Horse-drawn caravans, taken in 1856, also appeared in the English countryside during this period as fee-paying public horse-drawn caravans, which were poorly equipped, slow-moving They were used mainly by travellers. By the mid-nineteenth century, with the advent of the railways, these horse-drawn caravans had disappeared. European gypsies then improved on the horse-drawn caravan by making wheeled cabins that focused on the living experience, with beds, hot and cold water, kitchenettes, etc., and could be pulled by horses when needed. This modification is seen as the prototype of the trailer caravan and has profoundly influenced American RV culture through immigration.Well-made gypsy horse-drawn trailer image source historycooperative.org The first patented RV in American history in 1889, showing the gypsy influence. At the end of this phase, the first true RV was born, the Rover, designed and built in 1884 by a manufacturing company known for building railroad cars, with an outside awning, a bench seat, a water tank, a kitchen area, a utility area, lockers, storage shelves, and other familiar features of modern RVs.The caravan is still kept on Broadway in the UK.Interior of the 'Rover' Photo credit Cotswold Club, UK History of modern caravanning: from steam to internal combustion enginesThe world's first steam-engine caravans and internal combustion-engine caravans were both born in France, and France is also the only country to have used steam-engine caravans.France has abundant river water resources that can easily refill the steam engine boiler, and this inherent condition provides great convenience for the development of steam engine in France; at the same time, France has established well-connected and high-quality roads in the Napoleonic era, and the French government has also been supporting the development of automobile manufacturers and various automobile races, which has laid an excellent foundation for the automobile industry in France.The first known steam caravan was built in 1896 for Prince Oldenburg, a Russian prince living in Paris Grande Diligence. With the rapid development of the automobile industry, the first caravan powered by an internal combustion engine - also built in France - appeared immediately afterwards in 1902. The owner had ambitiously prepared to take it on a trip around the world, but it only ended up in Russia. These early motorhomes were based on the ground-up conversion of lorries and were poorly powered, slow, noisy and extremely unreliable. And because of the poorly developed road network, these bulky caravans were many times limited to driving and staying on the main roads.Prince Oldenburg's steam caravan Photo by CNAM.FR Around 1910, with the booming automobile industry, the selling price of internal combustion engine cars kept dropping and car sales exploded, at the same time the incomes and holidays of the European and American populations began to increase and most of the middle class began to enjoy camping, driving off to the countryside with tents, sleeping bags, coolers and other equipment, and then some of the more hands-on people started trying to fix various bits of kit to their cars.In 1904, the first caravan was hand-assembled onto an internal combustion engine car that could sleep four people, was lit by incandescent lamps, and was equipped with a refrigerator and radio. Over the next decade, travel-loving Americans were keen to use wood and tents to convert RVs on internal combustion locomotives, which were fully equipped with refrigerators, kitchens, bathrooms and even bathtubs, and in some cases, telegraphs.In 1915, a group of New Yorkers embarked on a journey in a luxury caravan some 7.6 meters long and weighing 8 tons, which generated numerous onlookers on the way to San Francisco, was admired by people along the way and became the talk of the nation at the time. Equipped with a generator and incandescent lights, a fully equipped kitchen, beds with soft mattresses, folding tables and desks, hidden bookcases, a gramophone, a transforming sofa with pillows, various small appliances, and even a second-story deck, this caravan was a masterpiece of early caravan technology and influenced the development of subsequent generations of caravans.A family travels from New York to San Francisco in a luxury RV in 1915 Photo credit Library of Congress And by the 1920s, the development of the automobile industry led to more options for RV chassis, the most common of which was the Ford model, often modified by various RV manufacturers, with an interior boasting chairs, bookcases, a refrigerator, sink and electric stove, and some models even had a septic tank.1927 Ford TT RV Photo by Library of CongressRV campgrounds in 1925 By the post-World War II era, RVs were popular again as young families and ex-soldiers became interested in less expensive camping. . Several major RV manufacturers began to improve their models, and plumbing and refrigeration systems began to become common in RVs; the first Chevy-chassis RV was built in 1946, sparking a frenzy among RV fans.The first Chevrolet RV After the 1960s, the RV lifestyle became more of a household name due to its integration into pop culture. In the decades that followed, RVs also continued to receive attention from Hollywood. Whether it's the space travel RV in "Spaceballs, " the RV that serves as the CIA command post in "Meet the Fathers-in-Law, " the mobile drug lab for Old White and Pinky in "Desperado "* or the doomsday RV in "The Walking Dead" and "Finch," RVs are an important part of American culture today.The recent history of modern caravanning: the emergence and development of the trailer caravanThe end of the First World War (1918), when millions of horses were killed in the war, led directly to the retirement of the horse-drawn caravan from history, while the early, uncomfortable internal combustion engine caravans caused a large number of people in Europe and America, desperate for a good rest and entertainment after the war, to turn their attention to the gypsy caravan: this caravan was a house and a carriage, and was very comfortable to live in. could a split caravan be built where the house was a house and the combustion engine carriage was a combustion engine carriage?In fact, the idea was studied by French automotive pioneer Émile Levassor as early as 1895. After World War I, both the European and American publics finally discovered the potential of this type of caravan and officially kicked off the development of the trailer caravan.1922 British Trailer Caravans In 1919 Britain, solid wall caravans quickly became the most popular trailer caravans. The earliest British trailer caravans had canvas made to resemble a tent in construction, but they were not very popular due to the changeable climate in England. In the United States, on the other hand, tent-style trailers were long popular in the market due to better weather conditions in some areas and could soon be towed by Ford Model T's. The Detroit area became the heartland for the manufacture of such trailers due to its proximity to automakers and vacation destinations such as the Great Lakes, and soon evolved into morphing trailers that could be easily folded and unfolded. This variant of the trailer RV still exists today in some American off-road trailers.1915, American tent-style trailer before and after unfolding Today's American morphing trailer enters the 1930s and caravans made mainly of tarp material begin to fail to meet the needs of the American people. in January 1930 the Detroit Auto Show, a caravan built from solid wood was on display, featuring a 1.8 meter wide, 2.75 meter long fiberboard body, the same height and dimensions as a common family car of the time; it also included a small window on each side and the interior consisted of cabinets and some simple furniture, and sold for $400. This was a significant price for the time, but 116 were sold by the end of the show. By 1936, about 6,000 of these types of RVs had been sold, with total sales of about $3 million. This became the beginning of the modern RV industry and marked the end of the tent style RV era. America's first all-solid material body towThe Great Depression of 1929 was a pivotal year for the RV industry. In the United States, mass unemployment caused a large number of people to lose their jobs and houses and had to run around looking for work, and many people started buying trailer RVs, driving around looking for work during the day and sleeping directly in the RV at night. RVs.A trailer for sale somewhere in the United States in 1930 Photo credit Library of Congress After the Great Depression, trailer RVs in the United States began to grow in leaps and bounds. More and more RV manufacturers began to emerge, with more and more models full of character. In 1936, Airstream, the oldest RV manufacturer in North America, developed the first aluminum-hulled trailer that could accommodate four people; in 1937, the "teardrop" trailer became popular, named for its resemblance to a drop of water and its compact size, which could sleep two people.A 1936 Clearwind caravan, a look that is still hot today Image source Airsteam official website The teardrop trailer of the 1930s By the 1940s, the growth of trailer caravans had stalled due to World War II, but after the war ended many caravan manufacturers doors once again began to innovate and drive into the trailer RV a great deal, and the RV market entered a new era.Legendary filmmaker Howard Hughes once designed and built eight trailer motorhomes to serve as his mobile dressing room, complete with lavish mahogany interiors and amenities such as bathrooms, refrigerators, stoves and air conditioning. Today, a large portion of sales of luxury RVs are also paid for by the film and television industry.Howard Hughes's RV design diagrams The history of modern RV development: towards maturityBy the 1870s, the baby boomers in the United States were beginning to reach the age of breadwinners, and they further explored the potential of using RVs instead of renting a home.In 1968, the son-in-law of the founder of Clearwind RV worked with the General Group to develop his first Class A motorhome. It started out on four wheels like a regular motorhome, but a few years later he added a rear axle with two tires to increase driving stability. The interior had a fixed queen-size bed, full kitchen facilities, a living room with a sofa and a cab.GM's Class A RV By the early to mid 1970s, the Toyota Group was starting to get a firm foothold in the American car market. At that time they had a pickup truck with a quarter-ton load capacity and fairly economical gas mileage. Toyota saw the growing RV market in the US and decided to take a piece of the action by converting the RV on this pickup truck.Toyota defined this caravan as a mini caravan, sized for two people, with a bed above the cab, a bathroom at the rear, a kitchen in the middle and a small dining table for two people, a typical C-type caravan. To this day, the pickup caravan continues to dominate the world of caravan sales.Toyota's Pickup Caravan came to the American market around the same time that the B-Motorhome began to appear. In fact, worldwide, the B-Motorhome predated the C-Motorhome, and shortly after World War II, Volkswagen introduced their B-Motorhome in Germany, thus starting the VanLife era in Europe.In 1974, Roadtrek, today's North American B-Caravan sales king, built his first B-Caravan. Their goal was to provide the comfort of a Class A motorhome in an easy to drive, low-profile van. For the rest of the 20th century, Pleasure-Way and Roadtrek dominated the North American Class B motorhome and camper market.Advertisement for modern RVs in the late 1970s American Model B: 2008-presentThe global financial crisis of 2008 also affected the RV industry, with a large number of established RV manufacturers closing down and merging with each other. In the wake of this, RV manufacturers around the world began to reflect and improve and innovate to cope with the vagaries of the market.In today's era, the RV market is also becoming more and more diversified, with the American baby boomer generation retiring from the stage of history and a new generation of RVers beginning to demand Internet, intelligence and environmental protection. RV manufacturers are also responding to the times by applying more lightweight building materials and construction techniques to their RVs. Full-size refrigerators, granite countertops, fireplaces and full-size queen-size beds, which are only found in luxury homes, are also starting to appear in RVs.At the same time, the RV market in China, the largest automotive market, has also started to develop rapidly, with regulations and policies for the RV market being introduced continuously after 2008, and consideration for the development of the RV market being added at the national planning level, for example, documents to encourage the healthy development of the RV market were issued during the 13th and 14th Five-Year Plans. The sales of RVs in China have also been growing rapidly in recent years, from less than 5,000 units in 2017 to 12,582 units in 2021, and in the first quarter of this year, 2,425 RVs were sold in China, an increase of 17% year-on-year.Although at this stage the Chinese RV market is still dominated by products that imitate European and American RV products, some strong manufacturers are starting to conduct independent research and development for the national conditions. For example, SAIC Datsun, a rare domestic auto OEM and RV factory in one, has continued to iterate on its RVs for the national conditions, including support for charging piles, stir-fry friendly kitchens, campers launched for the camping fever, etc.